What are the odds that Tina Fey, Lena Dunham, and Amy Poehler would all sell the exact same number of books during their debut weeks? Math has never been by strong suit, but the number has to be astronomical. Nonetheless, both Fey and Dunham sold 38,000 copies. Poehler sold 37,000.
Even New York Magazine found the coincidence worthy of note:
Did the Same 38,000 Women Buy These Books?
The market for readers interested in the lives of funny, famous women in television has been defined and it’s 38,000. That’s the number of copies Tina Fey sold of her memoir Bossypants during its first week, echoed exactly by Lena Dunham’s Not That Kind of Girl, and followed by Amy Poehler’s Yes Please at 37,000.
For some context, Bill O’Reilly’s non-fiction “Killing Patton” moved 169,000 first-week copies. And despite a seeming slow start, Fey’s “Bossypants” went on to eventually sell 2.5 million copies.
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